The invention relates to a system architecture, and in particular, to a method of customer installation and configuration of a machine for optional features and devices.
In the electronic printing market, it is becoming more common that a particular printing or copying machine will be custom-designed for a particular customer. While any printer or copier will usually have at least one xe2x80x9cmarking engine,xe2x80x9d that is an apparatus which places marks on paper, other equipment essential to the customer""s purpose may vary widely. For example, a customer may desire several paper feeders, each feeder capable of feeding a particular size or type of paper or special inserts; or, post-marking equipment, such as staplers, stackers, sorters, and binders, may be desired in different configurations by different customers.
In order to serve the needs of various customers most efficiently, it is desirable that a xe2x80x9cmodularxe2x80x9d architecture for a printing or copying machine be employed. Typically, around a basic marking engine module, a particular customer may purchase only the special equipment desired. Some customers, for example, may require a stacker and a stapler, but have no need for a binder, while another customer may require three separate feeders for feeding three separate types of paper, such as letter size, legal size, and cover stock. With a modular architecture, it is ideal that a customer could simply plug in the extra modules as needed, and then have the system as a whole automatically adapt to the new architecture to use the marking engine with whatever equipment is physically connected to it.
An ideal modular architecture for a printing apparatus would have a control system that could immediately recognize changes in the architecture and instantaneously adapt to the new arrangement, such as when the user rolls up and plugs in a new accessory device. An ideal architecture would also allow a customer to easily reconfigure a machine and be able to quickly determine and confirm the configuration of a given machine.
In known prior art systems such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,775 issued May 13, 1997, assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, for controlling a large number of modules in a coordinated system such as for printing, it is typical to provide each individual module with a xe2x80x9cnamexe2x80x9d or identification code so that the central control system can address a particular module as needed, in order to carry out a system-wide process. The addressing of individual modules by a central control can be performed either through direct one-to-one wiring between the control system and each individual module, or through an address bus.
It is also common to have every module have a dedicated identification code, by which it is addressed when operated by the control system. This arrangement, however, can be difficult if two physically identical modules are provided in the same system, as would be provided with two feeder modules each outputting a different type of paper.
It is also known in the prior art, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,592,881 issued Jan. 14, 1997 and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention, to provide a unique connection code for each connection between a pair of modules where a physical interaction between modules in the coordinated printing process can occur. An identification code is derived for a module by combining connection codes for a plurality of connections associated with the module. The module is caused to send a derived identification code to a controller and the module is operated by the controller addressing the module by the identification code.
It is also known, as disclosed in Ser. No. 08/670,830 filed Jun. 24, 1996, and assigned to the same assignee as the present invention to autoconfigure node identifications for elements on a network. Specifically, there is shown a method of determining the order of interconnection of the plurality of resources in a chain by disabling communications by each processor in the chain to the processors following in the chain and setting an autoconfiguration signal on a command control bus. The system controller then sends a message to the first processor in the chain, the processors not being disabled by a processor preceding in the chain. That processor then enables communication to the processor following in the chain and the process repeated to determine the order of all resources in the chain.
A difficulty with prior art devices is the need for a simple method for a customer to be able to configure a machine and be able to confirm the configuration. It would be desirable, therefore, to provide a system that overcomes the above defined difficulties.
It is an object of the present invention, therefore, to allow a customer to easily reconfigure a machine by the process of a machine determining its configuration and writing the configuration into memory after customer confirmation. It is another object of the present invention to run a series of turnaround tests to determine machine configuration and provide an interactive interface program to step a customer through an install process. It is still another object of the present invention to provide an additional layer of diagnostics by checking machine configuration at machine power up.
Other advantages of the present invention will become apparent as the following description proceeds, and the features characterizing the invention will be pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this specification.
More particularly, the present invention relates to an electronic image processing apparatus and a method of determining the configuration of a plurality of resources in the image processing apparatus by running turn around tests to determine the interconnection or configuration of the resources. A subset of the configuration is then displayed on the user interface for confirmation by the user An indication of the new configuration, if confirmed, is then loaded into memory and the machine is set up based upon the new configuration.
For a better understanding of the present invention, reference may be had to the accompanying drawings wherein the same reference numerals have been applied to like parts and wherein: